Unless they're born with complete and accurate knowledge about everything in the universe, I think all intelligent life out there is going to have a "religion" at some point in their civilization.
Or the universe was created and science is a way to explore the Creator by observing Creation.
Science was invented so that people could reach consensus about reality through dispassionate and rational procedures. These procedures are absolutely underpinned by induction (observable and reproducible results). Things that are not observable (spirits) or not reproducible (miracles) are logically outside the domain of scientific exploration.
To assume there is no supernatural because we've observed no supernatural phenomenon in the natural world is begging the question. In other words, to insist on the metaphysical claim that 'this reality is it', leaning only on Science, is to attempt to prove a negative.
So, I very much disagree with the description of 'Science' as a rational progression from metaphysical belief systems.
Anyway, all of that is a philosophical discourse, so I also disagree that philosophy is a 'precursor' to 'Science'. Early scientific inquiry was described as 'natural philosophy', after all.
As I said in another post, an intelligent species with a true hive-mind or a strictly hierarchical queen/worker biology may have completely different ideas about these things; ideas which would be unrelatable to us if not incomprehensible.
For example they may not need morals and laws.
An species without biological genders may not produce lofty treatises on Love. Species that live for a very long time or are medically immortal, or inherit memories, may have radically different ideas about Creation and Death.
We can't know how universal our ideas are until we meet someone else.
One of these things is not like the others.
This book ("Think" by Simon Blackburn) is a wonderfully readable introduction to the subject if you haven't studied philosophy before:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think:_A_Compelling_Introducti...
It's one of the books every smart person should read.
All that blathering about meaning of life and whatnot that people often see as philosophy's main topic of exploration is, in fact, for most part an exercise in argumentation and exploration of logic.
But sure intelligent life would probably have some wrong stories/beliefs about the world at earlier stages. I wouldn't be surprised to see that in deep learning machines.
The idea of deities need not be necessarily involved; there's major religions in our own world that do not place a focus on "higher beings."
This is first thing. The other is precursor of law and social norms. It is hard to explain to people, that they shouldn't steal, because "it's wrong" and it hurts society. It's easier, when you tell them they will burn in hell for that.
So I think the GP is correct, once a society encompasses multiple distinct tribes, it is easier to "guide" people with (threats of) in-group punishment than with out-group empathy.
The in-group out-group is some higher part of the brain that rationalised our values.
Though, I'm not sure if hive-mind intelligences or strictly hierarchical biologies (e.g. queens/workers/drones) would even need Law or guidance for social conduct, but they may still invent stopgap explanations (religions) on their way to understanding the weather and stars and such.
Wouldn't it make way more sense to explain why it's wrong? It has nothing to do with hurting society, but another individual.